


The Eternal Face

by Ghostcat



Category: Clouds of Sils Maria (2014)
Genre: Acting, Actors, Celebrity Profiles, Character Study, Complicated Relationships, F/F, Gen, Interviews, Post-Movie, Yuletide 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 11:58:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8889937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostcat/pseuds/Ghostcat
Summary: Burning up the screen at eighteen in her Oscar nominated performance in Maloja Snake, Maria Enders looks poised to pull off a second nomination for this year’s remake. The French film legend talks about her first failures, howling with wolves, and the futility of regret.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tekuates](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tekuates/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide!  
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> The photograph used in this story is by Driu + Thiago and was taken for Interview Magazine in 2014. Styling by Omaima Salem.  
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>  
> 
>  _Chalandrey_ , the film Maria Enders is filming is based on the historical novel _The Wolf Hunt_ by Gillian Bradshaw.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#### FROM THE MAGAZINE

 

 

 

 

 

# The Eternal Face

 

 

 

 

## Burning up the screen at eighteen in her Oscar nominated performance in _Maloja Snake_ , Maria Enders looks poised to pull off a second nomination for this year’s remake. The French film legend talks about her first failures, howling with wolves, and the futility of regret.  
  
---  
  
 

 

 

 

 

by BEN MILSTEIN

Photographs by DRIU CRILLY & TIAGO MARTEL

Styled by OMAIMA SALEM

 

 

It's 8:45 a.m. in Sfântu Gheorghe, Romania, and I’m entangled in Maria Enders’ scarf. Her subsequent laughter at our predicament—generous, infectious, intimate—is startling in its familiarity.  It is a laugh that you know; up close and in the dark. It’s a husband and wife sharing jokes until their bedside candle sputters out, a comic book antiheroine triumphant in victory, a young Parisian discovering sex in a party cloak room. It’s an older, seemingly embittered failed businesswoman in a toxic relationship with a much younger woman, laughing through tears at the sight of clouds.

 

The latter character, the brittle and fragile Helena from 2014’s international critical hit _Maloja Snake_ , has garnered Enders best actress honors at the Berlin, Cannes, and Venice Film Festivals; a triple crown of sorts for actors in Europe. Now, rumors of an Academy Award nomination are swirling; it would be her third. She laughs off the idea with a wrinkle of her nose, brushing bits of yarn from my shirt.

 

“I have been invited to that ball before. My winning is as likely as an American actor winning a César.” She winks and smiles—it’s a joke, as her co-star in _Maloja Snake_ , Jo-Anne Ellis, just won the best supporting actress César playing the role that Enders originated both onstage and in the original 1988 film: the tempestuous, impulsive Sigrid, who takes one look at the carefully composed Helena and tears her world apart.

 

On paper, Enders has little in common with Helena, but she imbues the tightly wound middle-aged executive with an angry longing that Susan Rosenberg, her co-star in the original, never fully attained. Enders’ performance is right on the surface of her skin and her transparency makes the audience relate to her even as Helena grows more and more desperate and selfish. It's the opposite of alienation; she brings you right inside.

 

There are echoes of Sigrid in Enders' portrayal of Helena. They are similarly narcissistic forces of nature. Difficult women who, by refusing to acknowledge other people’s feelings, force themselves into the protagonist role and warp the POV. In a sense, Helena and Sigrid are the _same_ person—and not just because they are played by the same person. One could easily picture the Sigrid of twenty-five years ago growing up, moving to the suburbs, marrying, having a couple of kids and calcifying into Helena. A girl pretending to be a woman ages into one at last and somehow, in the process, forgets she was ever that girl in the first place. One who could let the force of her feelings obliterate everyone around her.

 

“So what is it like, to come out on the other side and see what you were?”

 

There’s that laugh again. She throws her head back and guffaws, the laughter dimming into a low giggle. It is later that night and we are back in her hotel suite, a rococo blend of red velvets and dusty oak. It’s the highest rated hotel in the area and it probably costs a fraction of its Paris counterpart. Enders is unbothered, pointing her socked toes like the ballet dancer she once wanted to be.

 

“What I _was_?”

 

“Your portrait of Helena is almost a portrait of Sigrid.”

 

“Ha! Yes, Sigrid, the middle-aged years.”

 

“Well, Sigrid wouldn’t have died young.”

 

She sits up at this, her gaze suddenly sharp. “No, definitely not. You’re right about that.”

 

“Watching it, I very much got the sense that they are the same person. This is almost the sequel that Melchior was rumored to have written.”

 

“Like a palindrome.”

 

“Yes. Absolutely.”

 

Enders’ assistant enters the room to remind her that she has to be on set in an hour to meet the trained wolves that have been brought in for the film. Enders thanks her and turns back to me.

 

“That is an interesting take.”

 

“You’re not going to confirm or deny this for me, are you?”

 

“No.” Maria Enders laughs, lifting her foot onto the couch and hugging her knee to herself.

 

“You’re going to win the Oscar for this role.”

 

“Oh, really? You decree it?”

 

“I’ll decree a nomination, at the least.”

 

Her warm brown eyes close and open in a slow blink, the accompanying grin lazy and teasing. “How kind. So if I get nominated, I’ll congratulate you then.”

 

Somehow it feels less like a jibe and more like truth.

 

\---

 

Maria Enders was born in the affluent Paris suburb of Maisons-Laffitte in an artistic family—her mother was a dancer and her father, a painter. Her twin brother, Mathieu Enders, is an acclaimed composer, and her younger sister, Josette, a documentarian and professor at the Sorbonne.

 

“Between the three of us, we can make one very dull film,” she says with a delectable snort. “If we add our parents, it might still be dull but at least it will be beautiful to look at.”

 

Enders knew, while still in her early teens, that she wanted to be an actress. She’d been studying dance and mime at the Paris Opera Ballet School since she was ten, and at fourteen was plucked from an acting class by acclaimed German director, Helmut Binghoffer, to co-star as a young Antigone in his production of _Oedipus at Colonus_ alongside theatre and film legend, Jean Bergeron. The play opened to vitriolic reviews, Binghoffer publicly singled out the novice as the cause, and it closed after five performances.

 

“It was, I suppose, something of a gift that it was such a failure. I think that young actors who start off their careers with success are dooming themselves to fail. They will never get over that first thrill, the rush of that kind of adulation. I was called a “wooden marionette with visible strings” - it’s difficult to have a big head after such a walloping.”

 

Despite the debacle, Enders continued her studies and worked steadily in avant-garde theatre for the next four years until Wilhem Melchior offered her the part of Sigrid in _Maloja Snake_. Why was she, a relative unknown, handpicked by one of the finest playwrights and film directors of post-war Germany?

 

“He told me he saw me in _Oedipus at Colonus_ and loved me.” There is that laugh again. “This is why regret is pointless.”

 

 _Maloja Snake_ was a hit and almost immediately gained backing for a film adaptation. Melchior directed, and Enders and Rosenberg reprised their roles. The film, while stagey in parts—Melchior was not the visionary behind the camera that he was as a playwright and theatre director—has a certain dark power. Helena and Sigrid‘s relationship exemplifies the violence that sometimes overtakes us when we fall in love. Both women were nominated for a César for best actress. Enders won.

 

“Was Susan Rosenberg envious of your success? Were you close?”

 

“No, we were not. She was an elegant lady of the theatre and I was a bit of a street urchin, sleeping on people’s couches, all my possessions in a little bag, you know?” She picks a bit of tobacco off of her tongue, emphasizing her comment with a très Gallic _enh_ noise. “I was trying to soak up as much knowledge and passion and artistic vision from everyone that I was meeting, because there is no better time to do that but when you are young.  Susan Rosenberg was not one to give you too much. She kept to herself. If she was envious, I’ll never know. She was always gracious but untouchable. Hiding behind a plume of cigarette smoke and Calèche perfume.”

 

It should be noted that Maria Enders is smoking when she says this; her cigarette, an unruly shade of pink. She is wearing a perfume—a combination of vanilla, roses, a hint of musk—that is unknown to me. That smile is all her own. The likelihood of her being seen as anything other than an otherworldly being sent to earth by the gods seems unlikely, a tall tale told by a master storyteller.

 

“Initial press for this version of _Maloja Snake_ focused on your co-star, Jo-Ann Ellis and her much publicized private life before shifting, quite rightly, I think, to your magnificent performance. Were you irritated at the attention Ellis received?”

 

Enders stubs out her cigarette. “Not especially. I think Jo-Ann's Sigrid is phenomenal. She is a modern girl and it suits the role.”

 

Of course, that is no answer, and judging by her crossed arms and the childishly defiant tilt of her chin, Enders seems to know this.

 

A change in topic seems called for. “So how were the wolves?”

 

The clouds part, the sun breaks, I am blessed by the change her smile brings.

 

“Magnificent. They let me howl with them and I felt like part of the world.”

 

We part amicably and agree to meet for a drink after tomorrow’s filming. Enders walks me to the door, watches me from the doorway as I go down the maroon and gray carpeted hallway. She is still watching when I enter the elevator. The last thing I see is her hand held up by her eyes, waving.

 

\---

 

I was certain I heard wolves in the distance as I drifted off to sleep that night. Enders finds this delightful. There is a scene coming up in the film that Roaldson plans to shoot with the wolves (wolf thespians?) and Enders wants in, insurance be damned.

 

The sky outside has barely gone from black to pre-dawn blue and our star is already is in a make-up chair, getting prepped by a gaunt stylist to look like a woman who is wearing no make-up. Enders is costumed in 11th century French nun garb as the titular heroine of _Chalandrey_ , an adaptation of Kat Silvers’ historical novel by young wunderkind director, Piers Roaldson. A story of bravery, thwarted romance, and fantasy, the film promises to be a smart, sophisticated fairy tale for adults. Throw in prestige actors and a young visionary of a director and you have all the ingredients for an epic.

 

Roaldson first met Enders in London, right before the opening night performance of the revival of _Maloja Snake_ to discuss a possible collaboration and the two struck up an email correspondence, leading to this ‘Crusades meets Werewolves’ adventure romance which had early buzz for its script when some pages leaked online earlier this year.

 

“When he first started telling me about this project I worried that it would be a superhero-greenscreen type of film, you know, amusing but also ridiculous. Then he sent me the script and…” she trails off, smiling. “I had to do it. There aren’t many opportunities for an actress to do something of this scale that is intelligent and romantic. Les (Edwards) is one of my favorite theatre actors and has been a joy to work with so far. Our younger co-stars, Jack Winders and Stella Brent, are both serious-minded and disciplined and very committed to the work. They're ready to learn.”

 

“And you’re leading by example.”

 

“Me?” She _pfffts_ softly.

 

“You’re onscreen for most of the film. You’re the lead.”

 

“I am.” She laughs. “They’ve made a terrible mistake.”

 

The make-up artist locks eyes with me in the mirror. She smiles, and shakes her head. We both know that nothing could be less true.

 

\---

 

One hour from where Maria Enders dreams of filming with wolves is the imposing Bran Castle. The location has stood in for Dracula’s abode in several productions and today it’s serving as an exterior location for the second unit. I’ve asked around to see if there are vampires in this film along with werewolves. Disappointingly, there are not.

 

The crew has been here since dawn murmuring in a smattering of languages, trying to figure out how to light a leafy courtyard surrounding an ornate well. There, next to the discussions, sits Stella Brent, a fresh-faced English rose with blonde curls and huge gray-blue eyes, in an elaborate costume that needs four minders: one person to hold a heater near the actress, another to make sure the costume doesn’t catch fire, and two assistants to hold small fans up to Brent’s face so that her make-up doesn’t run. Oxford-educated Brent is nonplussed; she is serenely detached from the proceedings. Through an earpiece, she listens to a recording of her dialect coach reading her dialogue from an upcoming television show she starts shooting in Los Angeles once her work in this film wraps. Refined and articulate, Brent has nothing but effusive praise for her co-star. “When you act with her, you are acting with someone who is so in the moment, you must rise to her level. Because otherwise, all the false notes and shortcuts stand out. She is an inspiration to all young women who wish to have staying power in an industry that often doesn’t have much for us to do past our twenties.”

 

Fresh off of the wildly popular TV procedural, _Bx Blue_ , Jack Winders is just happy to be here. Two chairs down from Brent, he jiggles his leg and sips some coffee from a bright yellow and red mug. He’s earnest, friendly, and refreshingly unscripted. He admits to not being overly familiar with Enders’ work before signing on but then binge watching most of her filmography after getting cast.

 

“She’s so fucking good, dude. It’s like, crazy how amazing her performances are in _both_ versions of _Maloja Snake_ , you know? Who does that?  Find something so new and instinctual, in like, this thing they made when they were a teenager. I was blown away. I went from not knowing anything about her to being the most starstruck on set, man.”

 

Les Edwards, her co-lead in _Chalandrey_ , avoids the press and thus my questions, but seen from a distance on-set earlier today, his rapport with Enders seems genuine, if not downright electric. Edwards, having just completed a lauded revival of Sarah Kane’s _Blasted_ at The National Theatre and continued success with the philosophical hit man movie series, _Code Black_ , is not someone most of us associate with softness but he seems as much in thrall to Enders as her costars, director, and the rest of the crew.  In fact, her appeal is so universal that on my first night on location, my driver makes a point of stopping the car in front of my hotel and not unlocking my doors until he tells me, very slowly, with emphatic hitting of his steering wheel that Maria Enders is an _înger frumos_ or a _beautiful angel_.

 

\---

 

Melchior’s letters, published by his widow this year, talk rapturously of Enders as the muse he had been waiting for. How her face, the rosy-cheeked curves of of it, was like the blank screen of a cinema—the perfect canvas for a story. There is one long passage about her performance in Franklin Welles’ 2007 production of Schiller’s _Mary Stuart_. How, in the moment when she was defending herself to her sister, Elizabeth, the house put the wrong light on her, deep and blue, and the tone changed to thrilling effect.

 

“The blue awoke in her a mournful sense of innocence and inevitability; a child admitting a mistake and knowing that her confession will not change the outcome. It was so alive, her feelings seemed like an extension of my own. You can’t ask more from an actor: the gift of such openness. It leads to total identification from the spectator.” -Wilhelm Melchior

 

In 2013, Melchior passed away in the mountains near his Sils Maria home in Switzerland—coincidentally the idyllic setting of the Maloja Snake cloud formation that inspired the play’s title—and Enders lost her mentor. The event was the catalyst for her accepting the role of Helena in Klaus Diesterweg’s theatrical revival and subsequent film adaptation.

 

Diesterweg, making his debut as a film director, proved to be a natural at the medium. Where Melchior’s film was static and talky, Diesterweg’s vision is all blank spaces and movement, as if everyone was moving through the same rarified, high altitude air. The story’s focus shifts entirely, less love affair and more modern-world-as-we-know-it—24 hour news cycles and instant gratification. As good as a wild-eyed, nervy Ellis is reprising the role that Enders originated; Enders’ Helena is the revelation.

 

Enders, her face exposed in a chic short haircut, appears to have stepped out of the original _Maloja Snake_ , vivid and smooth, and into a Möbius strip. That same passionate, inconsiderate girl twenty-one years later, dimmed into cautiousness by age, passion bringing her back to her base self. And, as before, that passion was never about the other person in the love affair, it was about herself—discovering how far she could let go.

 

 _Spoiler alert_ : Helena disappears from the play with about twenty minutes to go; her absence never explained. In the 1988 version, Rosenberg’s Helena was a hand wringer of the highest order. Nervous, pale blue eyes perpetually moist, clad in boxy black and gold Chanel, Whippet-thin, she looked as if she were about to snap at the wrists, then the elbows, until finally she’d be nothing but a flat, folded garment. It was easy to imagine her wandering outside at dawn, discarding her bracelets and shoes, walking right up to the jagged cliffs of Sils Maria, and stepping off into the clouds. Ruined by love, drawn to her death. Depressed, dramatic, and oddly sexless.

 

2014’s Helena is no such animal. Sensual and alive, Enders gives you the vivid sense that her exit is a statement, another power play directed at her younger, fickle lover. Ellis’ Sigrid might argue and roll her eyes at her boss-cum-paramour, but when they are together, feeding off of each other’s vitality, they are equals. Between them there is carnality, a dance, a spark. The two women shadow one another, tender and vindictive, Helena giving as good as she gets; furiously balking at change, but not helpless, never that. There is a scene in the film of Enders, wordless in close-up, her face still while the camera backs away incrementally. Eventually, we see her body, the hunched curve of her shoulder, her hand on a doorframe. The camera turns to her shadow, black against a white wall. The silhouette straightens, growing slowly in stature, before determinedly stalking towards something of her own making. There is no ambiguity to the moment. She has power. It is powerful.

 

\---

 

“Were you ever afraid of taking on this role? Did you think to yourself: what if this isn’t as well received as my other performance?”

 

Enders frowns. “Yes. And no. I wasn’t concerned with the projection, how it would be received. I don’t like to think like that, it’s the enemy of the work. It gets you too much in your head and our job requires us to lose our heads, you know?”

 

“So what were you worried about?”

 

“I was worried that I hated Helena, that I hated the character, that the black shadow of Susan Rosenberg would haunt me for playing with her role.”

 

In an eerie echoing of the film, Susan Rosenberg committed suicide less than a year after the original film’s release.

 

“And did she?”

 

Enders smiles. “Yes. I think, yes. But not in the expected way.”

 

“So did you learn to love Helena?”

 

We are in a village bar. There is a calendar for 2011 on the wall next to the bathrooms. The Backstreet Boys boom from the sound system.  A frumpy woman in a tattered cardigan, aged anywhere from forty-nine to one hundred, serves us two large beers we didn’t order with a loud bang and slosh on the table. Enders thanks her for them, in Romanian, and the server’s face beams, practically radiating warmth. When she leaves us, Enders ducks down to sip from her glass, licking her top lip slowly before answering.

 

“I did.”

 

“How?”

 

“I learned to be innocent once more. A friend told me to try it. She was right.”

 

“Innocent?”

 

“Stop adhering to such a rigid interpretation of the character. Stop thinking about Rosenberg. My past with the material shouldn’t be guiding my choices. Just let it be what it is today. I tell you, every night, I played it as if Sigrid wouldn’t leave me. Or that I wouldn’t leave. I applied that approach to the film as well.”

 

“That seems like a common sense approach.”

 

“It does, but,” Enders closes her eyes and breathes in deeply. “I think it’s natural for the artist to get defensive when confronted with new ideas about process. Creation is so delicate, you can’t force it. So like cats, we have to discover those common sense things for ourselves. Otherwise we can’t use them, it doesn’t penetrate. We don’t learn.”

 

“Where does Helena go after she disappears?”

 

“You believe she’s alive?” Enders tilts her face and raises an eyebrow. “It's meant to be ambiguous. Open to interpretation.”

 

“The time jump is only two weeks and her absence isn't mentioned at all. Not the way death would be or a true disappearance. No one is worrying about her, life goes on.”

 

She nods. “But maybe there is nobody to think about her.”

 

“When people vanish,” I continue, “...without explanation, it leaves scars. And no one seems—”

 

“Scarred.”

 

“Yes.”

 

Enders leans back. Her hair is long again and it falls across one eye. Her smile curls up on the opposite side, like a roguish invitation. She bumps her knee against mine.

 

“See, _interpretation_.”

 

“I identify,” I admit, sheepishly.

 

“With Maria Enders or Helena? Or Sigrid.”

 

“Both. I mean, all.”

 

She laughs and shifts forward, kissing me on the cheek. I blush and carry my blush all the way back to my hotel room and possibly the next morning.

 

“So what’s next for Maria Enders, singular?”

 

“I’m going to be very busy. My directorial debut, a French-language adaptation of one of my favorite stories, _We Have Always Lived in the Castle_ by Shirley Jackson, a collaboration with a dance troupe in Paris, a new translation of _Medea_ at BAM in New York, another work with Piers (Roaldson) which I am very excited about, something he wrote for me before this—”

 

“It seems you are his muse.”

 

Enders snorts indelicately. “No. He just likes my face.”

 

Later that night, I email Roaldson to find out what it is about Enders’ face that he likes most. He replies almost instantly, with one word: _Timeless_.

 

\---

 

Any fan can tell you: a good work of art is worth revisiting over and over again. A dog-eared book, or a movie you can quote without prompting, the best of its kind will change with time; reveal itself in unexpected ways. It’s not about comfort but challenge—it’s a conversation with our growing selves. A dialogue with meaning and message. What was once funny, interesting, and timely, becomes deeply relevant, more fantastic—it reflects  _you_.

 

What about artists who revisit their past glories—reinterpret their most iconic work? Is it an exercise in nostalgia, a chance to relive their moment as darlings? Trot out the old faves, the greatest hits, the things the audience loves best. Or can it be something else? The other thing, the uneasy reflection, a reevaluation of the story. A chance to understand the work with older eyes and radically subvert it, forcing the audience to grow up and experience it in an entirely new way? Hitchcock’s returning to _The Man Who Knew Too Much_ in full Technicolor, Glenn Gould’s slower, more contemplative revisiting of _The Goldberg Variations_ , Kazuo Hazegawa deepening his double roles in _An Actor’s Revenge_ ; true expansions of their original stories.

 

Maria Enders doesn’t care for nostalgia. “It’s masturbation. There is only forward and, every now and then, if we are very lucky, the now.”

 

“What about revisiting past work, in order to correct mistakes?”

 

“There’s no such thing. Mistakes in art become deliberate, part of the fabric of the work. There are only more stories, or rather, the same story but with a million different ways to tell it. Think of all the beautiful stories in your life that you long to re-experience, in a dozen novel ways.”

 

“I thought you hated nostalgia.”

 

“I do. Fuck nostalgia!” Enders yells and clinks my glasses, howling with laughter when some spume lands on my shirt. She thumbs it away.

 

“And anyway, that’s not nostalgia.” Her smile widens slowly, then breaks. Enders throws her head back and laughs once more.

  
  
I get it then; it’s very clear. Maria Enders’ laugh captivates because it’s personal. She’s laughing, genuinely laughing, and her laughter is directed at _you_. Maria Enders is laughing at you, but rather than it being cruel or mean-spirited, her laughter is affectionate, loving, even. Her laugh pulls you into her embrace, while simultaneously pointing out your ridiculousness. She is a warm mirror; you at your most awkward and beautiful; truth itself.

 

\---

 

Two weeks later, the Oscar nominations are announced and Enders snags one for best actress in _Maloja Snake_. She sends me flowers. Narcissus bulbs sprouting in a gilded pot and a note saying, “ _Congratulations!_ ”

 

  

 -- // --

 

 

 

 

 

Ben Milstein is the author of the _New York Times_ bestseller _The Female Fuck-Up: The Rise of Difficult Women in Television_. He is a contributing editor at _Vanity Fair_ and _Conde Nast Traveler_ and has written for _New York Magazine_ , and _The Atlantic_ , among others. Milstein has won the Livingston Award for his investigative series about sex workers in Portland, Maine. His work has been included in _The Best American Essays_ and _The Best American Travel Writing_. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.  
---  
  
 

 

* * *

* * *

 

 

 

“Gross,” Hannah murmurs under her breath. Valentine looks up from her semi-fugue state of tax planning and rubbing her hands together to keep them from turning blue.

 

The seated area outside the gate for their flight to Milan is freezing, and the air conditioning is causing the hair on Valentine’s arms to rise up from the gooseflesh. Hannah, clad in one of her usual tank tops, looks down at the magazine in her lap with an adorable scrunched-nose look of disgust and seemingly no issues with the temperature at all.

 

“What's gross? Aren't you fucking cold? I’m so cold.”

 

“This article in  _Vanity Fair_. This writer is such a creeper. He has the biggest boner for the actress he’s interviewing. I learned next to nothing about the subject but know exactly how much he wants to fuck her.”

 

“VF loves their horny dudebros. Janie Williams again?”

 

“No, Maria Enders. You know, from that Snake movie that made me cry on the plane. Maloyan? Malian? Malian Snake.” Hannah laughs. “Oh my god, the comments are BRUTAL.”

 

Valentine stills. “ _Maloja Snake_. She didn’t get the cover?”

 

The gooseflesh now extends to her thighs. Hannah scoots over and presses herself against Valentine’s side, handing her the magazine, then wrapping her arm around her, rubbing her shoulder and arm briskly to warm her up. Hannah’s fingers are hot but dry.

 

Under any other circumstance, Valentine would melt but instead she reads. Or rather, reads without reading. She tries. The words all double and stack themselves together. Her eye keeps getting drawn to the black and white photo of Maria instead, looking insanely beautiful, standing in a forest full of bent trees.

 

“No, your latest American Idiot is on the cover, I ripped it off though so I wouldn't have to look at him. Her interview is in the back pages, after some article about old timey bank robbers. Her photos are fab. 10 out of 10, would bang.”

 

Maria Enders on the floor, looking up from lowered lashes. Sitting up and resting her head on her hands. Or in profile, head tilted back, her eyelids greasy-glittery, mouth slack. A long throat, bare shoulders. She could be anywhere.

 

“Where is this?”

 

“Romania. She’s filming a werewolf movie there.”

 

Valentine laughs and Hannah, misunderstanding it, laughs as well.

 

“I might have to see it. Les Edward is in it and you know how much I love his cruel handsomeness. He played Hemingway in that cable movie and it was like all my most shameful fantasies come to life.”

 

A child runs by, screaming in German and waving a streamer. Valentine bites her lip and scratches her leg.

 

“Oh Val, don’t be jealous. You know boys can’t keep my attention.”

 

She’d met Hannah Huang at a party in New York for Nylon about a year after getting back from Europe. Hannah was standing by a window, on her tiptoes in heels, blowing a thin stream of smoke out. She looked like a statue, high cheekbones and perfect skin, and when she realized that she wasn’t alone, that Valentine was standing there staring at her, Hannah grinned, revealing a row of perfectly charming crooked teeth that only made her prettier. When she spoke, an unexpected and broad Australian accent spilled out, turning that pretty into something sublime. It was a crush. Valentine had crushes on women before. But this wasn’t an I-want-to-be- _you_ crush, it was more. And instead of talking herself out of it, she let herself go.

 

“Also, I love werewolves generally. Like, I could read a billion versions of Little Red Riding Hood. Always love it. Whether it’s urtext or just trash reinterpretation, I always, always love it.”

 

There is so much joy in Hannah's enthusiasm, it's catching, and Valentine gives in to a grin despite the disquiet. She reaches out to touch, or groom, rather; tucking a wisp of errant hair behind Hannah's ear.

 

“Les Edwards is a great actor. He was amazing in that movie, uh, the one where he’s like, an urban planner or something who’s in love with his sister.”

 

Hannah’s eyes widen comically, then narrow. “Sounds absolutely disgusting, I wanna see it.”

 

Valentine hides a smile behind two fingers. She quit smoking but is still having a hard time keeping her fingers from her mouth.

 

“Him and Maria Enders will be good together. Is she the werewolf?”

 

“No, she’s a nun.”

 

“Oh my god.” Valentine blinks and laughs. Hannah licks her lips.

 

“Totally. I love her. She’s so raw, yet so elegant. The way she blushes is so sexy to me.”

 

Valentine squeezes her hand. “Maybe you should’ve done the interview.”

 

“I should’ve. I have a purer boner.”

 

They sit, the sounds of Fiumicino announcements washing over them. For the first time in a long time, Valentine thinks about that day in the mountains and of Maria’s shortcut to home-that-wasn’t. Furious and frustrated, Valentine saw the turn, and, impulsively, re-took it back to town and then away. Ten odd hours of running away, by train, by rental car, by plane. Running away from feeling stupid and unappreciated. And more.

 

She’d just thought that. _More_. It had to be more. There was always more.

 

Maria Enders won’t be in Milan. She’s in a magazine. Her face has been airbrushed. The rings around her neck erased. The photo doesn’t show the off-center piercing of her earlobes, or the exhaustion in her face. Valentine Julien-Cohen had seen that face at 4am, before the coffee, rubbing one eye and yawning, the pale pink rising up her cheek. Blinking at her, owlishly, and starting, not with a good morning, but with a line in the script that suddenly made sense.

 

“You feeling warmer?”

 

“Yeah, sorry. I hate A.C.”

 

“We’ve got another half an hour, let me go get you an espresso.”

 

Hannah kisses her and Valentine responds, more strongly than she usually does. She's a reserved person, she knows this, and like most reserved people, letting go hurts.  It feels like a tear in the lungs, like there's less oxygen to breathe in and further to fall down. Her girlfriend doesn't seem to notice the shift, it's too far inside. Hannah rises, long black hair swishing, rolling up the sleeves of her vintage Agnes B. hoodie, and glides towards the cafe, eyes of all the people waiting for their flights—overly-tan women and men with sweaters over their shoulders—following her like lazy paps outside a hotel side door.

 

After a minute or two, Valentine’s gaze returns to the magazine on her lap; specifically, to Maria’s face. It really is a work of art. In a million heartbreaking ways, it is almost better like this. The artist and the admirer, finally with some distance between them.

 

The text becomes legible again and pushing up her glasses on her nose, she focuses, on the first line and all the lines after.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Silverlining2k6 for the skins help, Cheshirecatstrut for the book adaptation suggestion, and both of you for all the cheerleading you do.
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> Special thanks to Bryrosea and Blithers, for beta reading this. You are both the greatest.


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